gnantly declared, "If Jem was here, he wouldn't let you do it."

It reads almost like fiction to have this dramatic halt in the murder
scene. For just as Duke was about to be hurled headlong over the side,
a man came forward and pressed the blackguards back on hearing these
words. For a time it was all that the new-comer could do to restrain
the brutes from hitting the poor fellow, while the men who still had
hold of his limbs swore that they would have Duke over the cliff. But
after being dealt a severe blow on the forehead, they put him down on
to the ground and left him bleeding. One of the gang, seeing this,
observed complacently, "He bleeds well, but breathes short. It will
soon be over with him." And with that they left him.

[Illustration: "Let's ... have him over the cliff."]

The man who had come forward so miraculously and so dramatically to
save Duke's life was James Cowland, and the reason he had so acted was
out of gratitude to Duke, who had taken his part in a certain incident
twelve months ago. And this is the sole redeeming feature in a glut of
brutality. It must have required no small amount of pluck and energy
for Cowland to have done even so much amid the wild fanaticism which
was raging, and smuggler and ruffian though he was, it is only fair to
emphasize and praise his action for risking his own life to save that
of a man by whom he had already benefited.

But Cowland did nothing more for his friend than that, and after the
crowd had indulged themselves on the two men they went off to their
homes. Duke then, suffering and bleeding, weak and stunned, crawled to
the place where he had been first attacked--a little higher up the
cliff--and there he saw Knight's petticoat trousers, but there was no
sign of his officer himself.

After that he gradually made his way down to the beach, and at the
foot of the cliff he came upon Knight lying on his back immediately
below where the struggle with the smugglers had taken place. Duke sat
down by his side, and the officer, opening his eyes, recognised his
man and asked, "Is that you?" But that was all he said. Duke then went
to tell the coastguards and Lieutenant Stocker on the beach, who
fetched the dying man, put him into Lipscomb's boat, and promptly
rowed him to his home at Lulworth, where he died the next day. It is
difficult to write calmly of such an occurrence as this: it is
impossible that in such circumstances one can extend the slightest
sympathy